Lock sighed as he watched Ino tumble off the platform, revealing his underpants to the audience one last time. At least he'd fought it, if the fact that the girl had had to shove him was any indication.
He also thought that he'd seen something flash in the boy's right hand, and while it could have been a trick of the light, he wasn't going to exclude the possibility of it being an attempt. At something.
“Ino lost, it seems that even without precautions the mental attack was too strong. He did break out of it in the end though, and had to be pushed off the platform.” He said to Kamin, who for once in a show of petulance turned away from him.
“No.” Was all she had to say to accompany the gesture. Although the clear disbelief and the slight amount of hurt held in the word was enough to tell a story all of its own.
Not knowing how to deal with the situation, he was just about to wing it when he felt someone approaching him from behind. Suffice to say he spun around and put a hand on his sword. A gesture that turned out to be unnecessary, as it was just his future brother-in-law. He was huffing and puffing as if he'd ran a marathon and while he had come here very quickly, one flight of stairs was not supposed to be enough to elicit such a reaction.
Affirming once again that his killing intent was still working its magic, it was, Lock threw an inquisitive glance Ino's way. The boy sat down next to him and bid him to listen. All through some very deep breaths naturally.
Leaning in close Lock sharpened his hearing, hoping that he would hear some good news. “It wasn't my opponent committing the mental attack, it was the Legil.” Ino whispered into his ear, and thusly destroyed any chances of this tournament going down as easily as Lock had hoped.
There was a need for some rational thinking, but first Lock would use this new information to smooth some rustled feathers. Turning around to Kamin he leaned in close to her ear and considering her sitting position, nearly hugged Lemmings' torso as he did so. “I'm sorry for doubting your brother, you were right, there was some foul play involved.” Was all he said before he returned to his place and delving into his thoughts.
There was perhaps a question of the validity of Ino's information. However to be perfectly frank, Ino probably knew more about magic than him, and had, to his credit, actually been involved in the fight. The information was to be treated as reliable, since any other possibility would simply lead him down the path of eternal confusion.
It was a bit obvious really. The Curadors had their participant in William, and the Legil's had theirs in beautiful girl. The only issue now was, that while he'd foiled the Curadors, he didn't know how he could foil the Legil. Considering it was him that did the level checks, it was perfectly possible that beautiful girl was actually overpowered for this tournament, and was just passing by with mind tricks and with cheating to not bring attention to her falsified levels. Perhaps that was why she was so pretty. An illusion to make her appear younger? Which woman wouldn't choose to also make herself prettier if she got such an opportunity?
But no, that was too broad a conclusion. If she was a high level experienced adventurer then she would have some way of winning her fights without outside interference. The fact that the Legil had intervened made it more likely that she was just some nobody.
Now the question became. How could he stop the Legil from fucking up his plans. Per-
He was rattled out of his thoughts by Ino shaking him, looking down into the arena revealed that Mia had just won her fight while he hadn't been paying attention.
Having one possible method at stopping the Legil wasn't worth shit if he went down there and was therefore unable to put pressure on the Curador though...
Looking over he determined that the cur had managed to right himself up, his killing intent was definitely weaker without all his attention. The cur was moving his lips again. William was starting to look better.
Lock blasted the healer again, sending him back into catatonia. He looked at Ino, who was worriedly looking at the Legil down below.
“Ino.” He started and pointed towards the Curador in the stands. “I have a job for you. Go to the Curador and distract him as much as you can, he's been somehow healing his friend. I need to go down and won't be able to disrupt him for some time.” He quickly explained this as he got up and started speed-walking towards the stairs leading down. The pause had been called. This meant Lock had to go down now, while he still had time.
Rushing down the stairs, skipping several at a time he pulled a vial from his pouch and chugged it down. Once he emerged from the stairwell he patted Harald, who had been waiting at the entrance, on the shoulder, before making a beeline directly to Mia. She was standing around on the other side of the field and turned to him curiously once she saw him approach.
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“Good job on your fight.” He greeted her as he started steering the both of them towards the edge of the arena where less people were likely to overhear them.
Mia preened under his compliment, pushing out her chest slightly. Lock was too distracted by the current events to take a look and simply took a hold of the girl once they'd reached the wall and pushed her against it. He rested his head on her shoulder, felt her arms envelop him in a hug and her head doing the same.
“The Legil is cheating. He's the one using mental skills to make people walk off when against beautiful girl.” He whispered, and felt Mia freeze for a moment. Likely processing the information. Her hands started roaming over his back, although he was hard-pressed to feel it through his chain-mail.
“Do you have a plan?” She asked quietly, directly into his ear. He could feel her hot breath wash over the appendage.
“Yes, I have potion resting in my stomach at the moment, it lowers the mind's susceptibility to outside influences.” He said back. “Do you have anything?” He asked and felt her hesitation.
“Foreign influence dampener, it does the same thing. Helps me keep my mind and body my own.” She whispered back.
“Good, you're amazing.” Lock replied. Her grip on him tighten. “Now kiss me and remember to swallow.” He ordered and started drawing back.
They both slowly disentangled themselves from each other, although Lock brought up his hands to gently grip her face. The love-stricken expression on her face was very convincing. He internally complimented her immense acting skills as he closed his eyes and brought their lips together.
It was pleasant, soft, and warm. He shoved his tongue forward to open her mouth and she clumsily replied. Using his new skill stomach storage, along with iron gut, which he'd gained from levelling up Vanguard and which allowed him to safely store potions inside his body, he regurgitated the potion that he'd drank while jumping down the stairs, straight into her mouth.
He felt some of the precious liquid escape and travel down his throat in the first few seconds of his still imperfect usage of the skill, before Mia caught on and drank all of what he had to give. They parted after a while, panting, red-faced and in a mirror image of each other brought up some cloth to wipe the starkly purple potion drops off their mouths.
Lock laid a hand on Mia's shoulder to stabilize the girl, she seemed a bit wonky and confused. It took a few moments for her eyes to uncloud and her breathing to even out. He nodded at her, leaving her with one last good luck before he turned around and headed towards Harald.
Only to be intercepted by the Legil, who was twirling his moustache like the villain he was.
“A word if you please.” The main said in a cultured and amicable tone. Sighing Lock stopped and turned to the man.
“What's up.” He greeted with an annoyed voice, disregarding decorum for the moment.
The man seemed unbothered and took this as a sign to continue the conversation. “I couldn't help but notice that you have quite a few candidates in the competition.” He began. “Which likely means you want something, may I be as bold as to ask what that is?” He finished with a question.
Lock stared into the man's blue eyes, trying to discern what he was getting at when he suddenly felt something. A tickle, or more like, an uninvited insect crawling and burrowing its way inside his brain and purveying his thoughts with voyeuristic glee.
A Legil, a mind-magician.
Lock did the only thing he could think of in this particular situation. He cleared his mind as if he was meditating and brought up a string of memories of him doing physical exercise as his speech went on auto-pilot.
“My friends have always wanted to become famous adventurers, I'm doing my best to help them.” His body said blithely as he continued remembering the long hours spent training in the past.
The Legil's eye twitched and he seemingly lost patience. “I'm sure it has nothing to do with the Trydan's also wanting to get a man inside the military.” He shot back.
“Not at all.” Lock instinctively answered.
“Look kid, this entire thing was our idea, you can't just come in here expecting to steal the results from us. Especially with only the backing of such an irrelevant family. I'll give you a choice here, because you got here fair and square, from what I can tell. You can have the second prize and everything beneath it, it doesn't matter. However the first one is ours, one way or another.” The man said, brazenly threatening him in broad daylight.
“What's the other way?” Lock couldn't help but ask, also considering if he should ask for some payment for throwing the tournament.
The man looked at him as if he were a child. “Then the winner disappears, never being heard from again and the first prize falls to second place, if we don't have second place, then third place, and so on.” He said simply.
Lock blinked at the man. Finally brought back into his own mind. Thankfully the mind-probe had retreated by now.
Thinking about it for a bit, he bitterly determined that honestly speaking there wasn't much he could do in this situation. He had no power, the only leverage he had was that the Legil likely thought he had the Trydan's fully behind him due to the heir of the family being present. It would be better to fall back now, he could still get the magical academy admission. He hadn't even heard of the military officer track being offered until two days ago. It had simply been a side-goal. It galled to be beaten like this by somebody who wasn't even willing to use their brain to solve the issue, but simply utilized brute force in the form of them having power and him having none. The situation also made it infeasible to demand a pay-off for forfeiting. The only ground he had to stand on was fake.
“Alright.” Lock said with a sigh and some tension bled out of the Legil. “I'll tell Mia, the girl back there.” He said, while pointing backwards towards the ninja. “To surrender if Harald wins his fight, therefore securing second place. I'll tell the boy to surrender in the break before the finals, or at least to lose convincingly.” He said, the Legil nodding, seemingly pleased.
Lock turned back, adapted a confident posture, and started walking towards Mia. He needed to spin this in a way that he would still come out as someone competent and trustable to his future subordinate.
“Good news, the plan worked.” He said to the ninja, who greeted him with a confused smile.
“We've put enough pressure on the nobles for now.” He said, “So, good job on getting so far, but if Harald wins his fight against William then you need to surrender.”